


A Plane with Two Co-pilots

by tawg



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: blindfold_spn, M/M, marriage first - love comes later, married for politics, season five AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-07 19:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt: Dean and Cas have to get married for political reasons. Neither of them expected to fall in love with the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Plane with Two Co-pilots

Sam, being the traitorous bastard that he was, thought the idea made some kind of sense. Since everyone had agreed that a second attempt at the apocalypse would be a bad idea, humans and angels needed to be committed to working together in order to stop that from happening. And the best way to symbolise that commitment was with the pairing of an angel and a human.

And what better candidates than the Righteous Man and the angel who dragged him out of hell?

“You know who would be better, Sam? _Anyone!_ ”

“The two of you did stop the end of the world together.”

“You were there too! You marry him.”

“Okay, firstly, demon blood? Does not put you in heaven’s good books. Secondly, I’m not the one who accepted the proposal.”

“I was tricked!”

“Right. Keep trying.”

The sad truth was that Dean had been tricked, kind of. Raphael had turned up, with Cas on his left and some other mook on his right, and explained the situation. “You want a human and angel to get hitched? What do you need me for? Dating advice?”

Sam had snorted. “I think they want something that lasts for more than five hours.”

“You have been chosen as the human,” Raphael had replied. Sam and Dean had stared at him for a long moment, and then turned to Cas for an explanation.

“You were the Righteous Man for this attempt at the apocalypse,” Castiel said flatly. He did not look especially thrilled with this plan. “You were the start and the end. No other human has your... value. Also,” he added, breaking away from the explanation that had been handed to him, “your experience could be an asset.”

Dean had snorted. “Right. And where is the line up of eligible bachelorette angels?” The mook on Raphael’s left shoved Castiel forwards, and the angel stood there quietly fuming. “... You have got to be kidding me.”

“If only,” Castiel ground out.

“You already have a bond,” Raphael said bluntly. “What more is needed?”

“Some boobs would be nice,” Dean replied, and Cas had given Dean a withering look. “And why aren’t you sticking up a fight?”

Castiel shifted his jaw. “There is nothing in this agreement I disagree with,” he said flatly.

“That’s real convincing.” Cas huffed a sigh out through his nose and looked at Dean, really looked at him. That’s where it all went wrong, in Dean’s mind, because it was Cas, Cas who Dean _knew_. And there was nothing scared or angry in his stare. Irritated, sure, but heaven’s antics seemed to annoy Cas as much as they had Dean since the big ‘A’. But there was nothing in there that said that this was a bad idea, per se. Cas liked humans, probably more than he liked most angels. He’d told Dean during their make-shift celebration party that he intended to make sure Heaven didn’t ‘act like a bag of dicks’ again in the future. And all Dean saw in Castiel’s gaze was some mild frustration that this was the grand plan that heaven had come up with. Annoyance at the pomp and ceremony that Castiel had worked hard to distance himself from, but no protest.

So Dean had said, “Sure. Can we get married by Elvis?”

It did not occur to Dean until after the ceremony to ask if he and Cas could get angel-divorced when the bonded thing got old. It did not occur to Dean until after he realised that he was stuck with the bond for the rest of his life to ask what, exactly, this commitment entailed. And then, to make a perfect hat trick, it did not occur to Dean that Sam would be less than sympathetic with the turn of events until his gigantor little brother was laughing his ass off at Dean.

~*~

After heaven had signed off on the deal came a period in which Dean’s soul and Castiel’s grace would “become one”. Sam had given Dean a box of condoms, a gallon of lube, and the biggest smirk ever known to man. Bobby had assured Dean that he did not need to see the honeymoon photos.

The worst part wasn’t that everyone Dean knew assumed they would be having sex. The worst part was the reality: Dean, lying on the floor of a shitty motel room, while Cas stuck his hand into Dean’s chest. It was tingly, and kind of awkward feeling. And then Cas just sat there, up to his elbow in Dean, his eyes closed in concentration.

“You lose your keys in there?”

“Be quiet.” Castiel was, as always, the master of small talk. So Dean lay back, did his best not to fidget, and thought of England.

“What are you doing in there anyway?”

“I am unbraiding the threads of your soul, so I may merge with it.”

“Huh. Souls have threads?”

“Yes. And if I snap one it will not just kill you, it will be a final death from which even I won’t be able to retrieve you. But don’t let that stunt your sparkling conversation.”

“...I’ll let you work.”

“Hm.”

~*~

When Dean emerged, it was two weeks later and his fingers had that weird ‘pins and needles’ feel to them. “Enjoy yourself?” Sam asked when he picked Dean up.

“Yeah, I spend two weeks lying on my back and the dude doesn’t even buy me a drink. Don’t give me that look, it was all soul stuff. So vanilla even you’d find it boring.”

Sam raised his eyebrows as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Soul stuff? Sounds like Cas is taking this seriously.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, it’ll be nice to see him around some more.”

“Freaking great.”

Except they didn’t see Castiel around. He didn’t show up for three months. He didn’t answer Sam’s prayers, and Dean refused to put his hands together. “I’m not going to be the clingy one in this relationship.” Dean was convinced that if Cas had died, he’d probably have been told. Cas was most likely just off having fun not sticking his hand in people.

And then he turned up, dishevelled and moody, and pretty much the same Castiel as ever. But his presence slammed into Dean, a solid twist of emotions that had no name but felt exactly like something being slotted back into place when Dean hadn’t know it had been missing.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.

The word Castiel spoke went right past Dean’s ears and into his brain, conjuring an image of a room built out of a vacuum. Sam flinched at the sound, and lifted a hand to rub at his ear. “Negotiating,” Castiel explained. “Sam, I need your knife.”

“Negotiating what?” Dean asked as Sam grabbed the knife from under his pillow.

“Hell is going through the same reorientation that heaven went through after the apocalypse.”

“Crowley is going to get toppled from his throne, eh?”

“Crowley,” Castiel corrected as he took the knife, “is struggling to stop a mass exodus. There are passages into and out of hell that only the highest ranked demons can travel through. Occasionally a lower demon can break out through them. Crowley’s opposition is handing out free passes out of hell.”

Sam gave Dean a worried look. “What are you doing to stop it?” he asked.

“ _We_ are doing nothing,” Castiel replied darkly. “Because angels do not consort with demons.” And then he disappeared.

“Do you think-?”

“I think that the less we know about what he’s up to, the better,” Dean said, throwing himself down onto his bed. “You want to order a pizza?”

Sam stared down at Dean in disbelief. “You’re just going to let him go out there like that?”

Dean laced his hands together behind his head. “I can’t stop him. And letting Cas be a one-angel-army sounds better than opening the doors to hell again.”

“I can’t believe you!”

“What? You want me to go and find a Widow’s Walk to hang out on until he gets back? He’s an angel, this is what he does.”

And then - a month after that, a month filled with pointed looks from Sam and an attempt at not caring at all from Dean - Crowley turned up in the middle of the latest motel room, one of Castiel’s arms slung around his shoulders and the demon-killing knife held between a thumb and a forefinger. “I thought I’d return this before making my victory speech,” he said, letting Cas fall to the floor with a thud.

“That was quick,” Dean said sarcastically.

“We snuck back through a side dimension,” Crowley said, dusting his suit off. “Shaved a few years off. There are too many angels in hell as it is, I don’t want another.” And he disappeared, leaving Cas in a bloody heap.

“Honey,” Dean said as he and Sam hauled Cas up off the floor and carried him to Dean’s bed, “we really need to find you some new friends.” Cas made a raspy noise in response, and coughed some blood up onto Dean’s pillow. “Ugh. Sam, you go get that pizza.” 

Usually Dean would have no problem with getting Sam to help him figure out how to treat angelic injuries, but Dean just wanted to be alone with Castiel. Wanted to figure out why he was so angry and so worried, why his hands were shaking. “So,” Dean said once Sam was gone. “What happened to you?”

“Hell was... easier last time,” Castiel replied haltingly, sounding like the mere act of talking was excruciating. 

“Well, we don’t want you getting lazy now, do we?” Dean replied, sitting on the edge of the bed. He grabbed Castiel’s hand, and felt himself calm a little. Castiel breathed easier, and Dean looked down at their entwined hands. “I don’t suppose being your husband gives me awesome angel healing powers?”

“No awesome powers,” Castiel replied, his voice still raw. He pulled Dean’s hand up to rest against his forehead. “Barely even exciting ones.”

“I can’t help but think that I kind of got screwed in this deal.”

“You didn’t have to agree.”

“Neither did you,” Dean returned.

Castiel huffed a laugh. “Of course I did.”

“Wow, Cas. Way to make a dude feel special.”

“As... limiting as being bound to you is, as infuriating as you are, I was not lying, Dean. I can find no objection to having the protection of all humans as my duty, to having you help me. It is familiar to me.”

Dean looked down at Cas and sighed. “Saving people, hunting things. Same old.”

“Yes.”

“Well then, next time you feel the need to run off and fight every demon in hell, you bring me along. You may be all angel again, but you still need back up.”

“There may be some wisdom in that,” Castiel conceded.

“And I’m too young and pretty to be a widow,” Dean joked.

“I missed you,” Castiel said. “Last time I was fighting to get to you. Hell is so much worse without your light.”

Dean paused, unsure how to interpret that. But there was a warmth in his chest, something foreign and familiar inside that let him know exactly how he felt about it. “I missed you, too. Are you running off as soon as you’re better?”

“There is much to see to,” Castiel replied, and Dean nodded.

“I figured.”

“But, it may take a while for me to regain my strength.”

“I see.”

“Possibly a whole day.”

Dean considered that. “We’d better make it two, just to be sure.”

“That sounds... responsible.” 

Dean shook his head and looked away. “So this is how it’s going to be then? You running off and then turning up when your batteries need recharging?”

Castiel reached up and touched Dean’s jaw, turning his head back. “You will do the same.”

“Huh. So, this is what it’s like to be married to a hunter.”

“I’ve done scarier things.”

Dean laughed. “I don’t know. Something tells me that you’re not a pretty picture first thing in the morning.” Castiel smiled and, to look at it all from this angle, it stopped seeming like such a bad deal.

Sam took his sweet time getting that pizza, but Dean couldn’t find the energy to mind. The commitment had ended up being more than either of them had bargained for, but life was yet to throw anything at Dean that he couldn’t handle. And with Castiel beside him, figuring it out as they went? It was so familiar that Dean didn’t know what he’d do without it.


End file.
